Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia, no peace I find. Just an old sweet song keeps Georgia on my mind. ~ "Georgia On My Mind"

Georgia has prospered because we have refused to be divided. We have worked together, and the nation and the world have taken notice. We are where we are today, the envy of other states, because decades ago our leaders accepted change while others defied it. In the long run, it has paid us handsome dividends. ~ Roy Barnes

Georgia quietly concentrated on growing our economy, on the goals that bring us together rather than those that can tear us apart, and, in the process, Georgia established itself as the leader. ~ Roy Barnes

We have a great deal to be proud of as Georgians. Our history, our heritage, our state's great natural beauty. But, nothing should make us prouder than the way Georgia has led the South. ~ Roy Barnes

Our people do not need to bleed the color of red Georgia clay. ~ Roy Barnes

Georgia has prospered because we have refused to be divided. We have worked together, and the nation and the world have taken notice. We are where we are today, the envy of other states, because decades ago our leaders accepted change while others defied it. In the long run, it has paid us handsome dividends.

We have a great deal to be proud of as Georgians. Our history, our heritage, our state's great natural beauty. But, nothing should make us prouder than the way Georgia has led the South by focusing on the things that unite us instead of dwelling on those that divide us.

What will be the result to the institution of slavery, which will follow submission to the inauguration and administration of Mister Lincoln as the President of one section of the Union? My candid opinion is, that it will be the total abolition of slavery... I do not doubt, therefore, that submission to the administration of Mister Lincoln will result in the final abolition of slavery. If we fail to resist now, we will never again have the strength to resist.

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates, and the world, the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slaveholding confederate States, with reference to the subject of African slavery... The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party, while it attracts to itself by its creed, the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government; anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose.

Started in Atlanta, then I spread out with it. South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi. On to North Carolina, Philadelphia, and Virginia. From down in Miami where it's warm in the winter. On up to Minnesota where it storms in the winter.

The presidential election of 1864, occurring after the spectacular Union military successes at Mobile Bay and in Georgia and the Shenandoah Valley, reaffirmed the northern majority's commitment to the suppression of the rebellion in the South and the restoration of the Union without slavery. Arguably, Abraham Lincoln's victory owed more to the Northern rejection of the Democratic Party's war-failure platform and its call for an armistice preparatory to a national peace convention than to the voters' confidence in the president's leadership.

The three States of Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, comprising the military department of the south, having deliberately declared themselves no longer under the protection of the United States of America, and having taken up arms against the said United States, it becomes a military necessity to declare them under martial law. This was accordingly done on the 25th day of April, 1862. Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible; the persons in these three States — Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina— heretofore held as slaves, are therefore declared forever free.

William Tecumseh Sherman, telegram to General U.S. Grant (1864), as quoted in Conflict and Compromise: The Political Economy of Slavery, Emancipation, and The American Civil War (1989), by Roger L. Ransom

If the people raise a howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war, and not popularity-seeking. If they want peace, they and their relatives must stop the war.

By the original compact of government, the United States had certain rights in Georgia, which have never been relinquished and never will be... Allow the Union and peace once more to settle over your old homes at Atlanta.

Still on the whole the campaign is the best, cleanest and most satisfactory of the war. I have received the most fulsome praise of all men from the President down, but I fear the world will jump to the wrong conclusion that because I am in Atlanta the work is done. Far from it. We must kill three hundred thousand I have told of so often, and the further they run the harder for us to get them.

I was watching the news reports from Baltimore and hearing all the condemnations from some about being kept down and the lack of jobs, opportunity, good schools; then why do these blacks keep voting for the same people? And this isn't a phenomenon isolated to Baltimore. Every single major urban center in America is run by Democrats; more specifically, liberal progressives, black or white. The morass that became Detroit. The killing fields of Chicago. The depravity of Washington, D.C. The shame of South Dallas. And yes, even the place that was once my home, Atlanta, even with all the successful black entertainers. Now, I remember the first black mayor of Atlanta, Maynard Jackson. That guy was a leader and even spoke at my high school Baccalaureate. But today, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has done such a bang-up job that the Atlanta Braves are moving to Cobb County! Just do the assessment yourselves, who are the elected officials heading up the urban centers? And where does one find the most dire socio-economic statistics?

Hurrah! Hurrah! We bring the jubilee! Hurrah! Hurrah! The flagthat makes you free... So we made a thoroughfare for freedom and her train, sixty miles in latitude, three hundred to the main. Treason fled before us, for resistance was in vain, while we were marching through Georgia... Yes and there were Union men who wept with joyful tears, when they saw the honored flag they had not seen for years. Hardly could they be restrained from breaking forth in cheers, while we were marching through Georgia.